


Living and Dying and Living (or Full Circle)

by moonstone1520



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 16:13:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8216336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstone1520/pseuds/moonstone1520
Summary: Sherlock's heart is broken, but he will recover in the most splendid fashion and learn a lesson about love in the morgue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Exhibition entry for the Sherlolly Smutember Challenge.
> 
> Warning: angsty af because apparently I just can't make these kids happy.

Nothing had changed.

He’d overdosed on a _fantastic_ array of drugs and been returned home from certain death due to the reappearance of a madman, and yet, of course,  _nothing_ had changed.

Mycroft was still annoyingly overbearing.

John was still infuriatingly annoying and hasn’t stopped harping on him about the drugs since the moment he stepped foot on the tarmac.

Mary is still cheeky as ever, but shooting him hooded glances every now and again.

Grant (George? Gabe?) was escorting Molly to his flat every evening to take a drugs test—oh right, that was the one thing that _had_ changed.

That, and the fact that Molly was no longer speaking to Sherlock. Apparently, his most recent drug use had sent her over the deep end and she was refusing to say a single word to him unless she absolutely had do.

It was all very _boring_.

Finally free of everyone that had been irritating him during the past weeks, Sherlock settled back into his armchair to finally be able to think.

But he was antsy.

He was antsy and he couldn’t figure out why.

He glanced at his watch and realized: Molly hadn’t come around to the flat today.

A low hum of alarm began to run through him for reasons he couldn’t discern, but he brushed them off. She was probably just working late at the lab.

He settled in and ventured into his mind palace, filing away all the clues he had gathered regarding the mad video that had been broadcast over England.

Moriarty was dead, that much was certain. It is physically impossible to survive a bullet exiting the back of the skull. No, the fact that he was dead wasn’t even up for debate.

He remained seated in the armchair for three hours, until he was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts by the distant chiming of Big Ben. Damn it! He was almost there! He had almost figured it out!

He looked around the empty flat, highly annoyed. What the _hell_ had pulled him out of his thoughts like that?

The low hum of alarm that had been coursing through him elevated to a slight panic.

_Where was Molly?_

He pulled out his phone. Nothing. Not even a curt text that she was running late. Which was highly unusual for her. His focus was pulled slightly by the heavy sounds of John’s tread climbing the stairs. He turned toward the door, clutching his phone so hard the knuckles were white. John’s steps were heavier than normal. And he was accompanied by Greg. Both were climbing the stairs slowly, tiredly…

 _Something’s happened to Molly_.

He knew this without even thinking. He watched as the door slowly opened, John and Lestrade emerging into the flat looking as though they’d aged ten years in the last twenty four hours.

The panic flowing through Sherlock froze and turned immediately to dread.

The two men stood side by side, watching Sherlock watching them. They exchanged glances and Sherlock _knew_.

John cleared his throat. “Sherlock…”

“What happened,” he snapped, his body tense. “Where’s Molly?”

“Sherlock—” Lestrade began.

“Where is she?” he snarled, panic lacing his tone, his eyes wild.

“Sherlock, you need to come to the morgue with us,” Lestrade said, holding out a beseeching arm to the other man. “Something has happened to Molly—”

“WHAT HAPPENED?” Sherlock bellowed, his face flushed.

“She’s dead,” John whispered brokenly.

Sherlock froze as his world came crashing down.

* * *

 

He walked down the hall between John and Lestrade, the two men almost acting as shields for what was to come, what he must do. Sherlock stared without seeing, feeling well and truly numb for the first time in… well, years, if he was being perfectly honest. He swallowed hard as they came to the dreaded door. John and Lestrade made to go in, but Sherlock stood where he was. John realized first what was happening.

“Sherlock mate, you’ve got to,” he said softly.

He blinked, buffering. Lestrade exchanged another glance with John, but stayed silent.

“I… I can’t,” Sherlock stammered, his voice strangled. “I can’t do this. I can’t see her.”

Lestrade moved towards the detective. “You were listed as her emergency contact,” he said gently. “She has no other family. You have to ID her, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s gaze ticked to Lestrade, then back to John. “John…”

John took his arm. “We’ll be right there, Sherlock. We’ll be right beside you the whole time. But you have to do this.”

The chill that settled about him had nothing to do with the building’s temperature. Steeling himself, Sherlock nodded and followed John and Lestrade into the morgue.

* * *

 

Stamford was waiting for them. He nodded to all three men, then stepped towards Sherlock.

“Are you ready, mate?” he asked quietly. Sherlock swallowed and nodded. Stamford pulled back the sheet, exposing Molly’s face.

She was lovely. Why didn’t he ever tell her? For all intents and purposes, she could have been sleeping. Her auburn hair was spread around her like a halo, her skin white as marble. There were still traces of the nude lipstick she had been wearing on her mouth. Fresh purple bruises mottled her long, graceful neck and a flash of white hot, murderous rage struck him momentarily.  

“Who did this?” he asked, his voice low and ragged.

Lestrade cleared his throat. “We’re not sure at the moment, but we do have a few leads. We think whoever was behind the video did this. We’ve got her phone and laptop and we’ll be going over both of them with a fine-toothed comb.”

“She told me she received some nasty messages at her home,” Stamford interjected. “And here at work. Threatening her, and you,” he said, looking at Sherlock, “if she didn’t comply with what they wanted.”

“And what exactly did they want?” Sherlock asked hollowly. John glanced at him, worried. Sherlock stared down at Molly, his expression one that John had never seen on his best friend’s face before. If he didn’t know better, John would say he looked almost… heartbroken.

It was Lestrade who answered the question after a moment. “According to Stamford and some other interns, they wanted her to flip on you. Somehow, they knew she was involved in your death three years ago. They knew that to get to you, was through Molly.”

“When?” he asked, his eyes never leaving Molly’s face, barely moving a muscle the entire time.

“We found her this morning,” Stamford said. “It doesn’t look like she made it home last night.”

“Why wasn’t I called?” Sherlock asked, coming alive a tiny bit. The three men exchanged guilty glances behind his back.

“We… we know how you get, Sherlock, when the people you love are threatened,” Lestrade answered hesitantly. John noticed the muscle in Sherlock’s jaw clench at the mention of “love”. “We wanted to clear the area, see if anything was left behind… for you. And make sure that you were safe.”

“You wanted to secure the scene without my interference after the Magnusson debacle,” Sherlock said flatly, a hint of menace in his voice. John cleared his throat as a warning.

“Can you blame them, Sherlock? You are, after all, a bit of a high risk now. Having you on the scene would be a legal nightmare.”

“No, I guess I can’t,” he murmured in reply. John stared at the other man, the gears slowly turning. The way Sherlock was looking down at Molly’s body; his emotional (for him) response to her death and identifying her body; the way he seemed almost scared to go on without her…

“Oh my God,” John whispered, as the realization struck him like a thunderbolt. Stamford and Lestrade turned to him, confused, while Sherlock didn’t even glance his way.

“You… you loved her. Sherlock, you loved Molly. You were _in love_ with her.”

Sherlock nodded in the affirmative.

“How long?” Stamford asked.

“Years,” Sherlock whispered. “I honestly don’t remember when I started anymore.”

Thunderstruck, Lestrade gaped at the detective. “And you never told her, did you?”

There was a long pause.

“I always thought there would be time,” Sherlock murmured.

* * *

 

Hours had passed and Sherlock was still in the morgue staring down at her body. Stamford and Lestrade had left to attend to the matters that come with the murder of one of their own. John attempted to pry Sherlock away from Molly, but in short order decided that Sherlock needed this, to stand vigil over Molly’s body, to grieve in his own way.

In the wee hours of the morning, Sherlock finally moved. He tentatively reached out and caressed the cold and waxy cheek.

“I wish I had told you sooner,” he whispered. He bent down and kissed her forehead, her skin cool on his lips.

“Goodbye, Molly,” he said. He turned to leave the morgue and caught his breath as he stumbled backwards at the sight before him, his heart leaping up into his throat, his face paling as the blood rushed from it.

Molly Hooper stood alive and well in the doorway.

“Sorry,” she murmured. Her big eyes seemed larger in the terrible lighting. Her face was splotchy from crying and she seemed smaller in the oversized jumper she wore. Her hair had been dyed blonde and cut short to frame her face and she wore blue contact lenses.

“I’m so sorry, Sherlock. It’s the only thing I could think of.”

He stood in shock, taking her in.

“Why? Good God, Molly, why?” he asked, his voice breaking.

She took several hesitant steps towards him. “It’s the only way I could protect myself. Protect you,” she said in a rush, the words tumbling over each other. “I’m not skilled in any particular way, except with a scalpel. They didn’t know I was involved last time—and now _everyone_ knows. John has his skills from the Army, Mary has hers, you have your brother to help you… I have no one. There’s only so much protection that the British government can give me,” she smiled sadly.

 “Molly… it’s you, it was you on that table, I saw you, you’re dead!” Sherlock stammered.

Her lip trembled and tears flowed down her cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry, Sherlock,” she said wetly, approaching him slowly. “I had to know if the illusion was real enough to fool you. Because if I can fool Sherlock Holmes, I can fool _them._ ”

She stood in front of him, still keeping plenty of space between their bodies.

“It was the only way I could see to protect myself, and to protect you. This way, they can’t get to you through me, though God knows they tried.” She pulled down the collar of her jumper to show him the bruises that ringed her neck—the same ones that spotted the neck of her deceased doppelganger. His face twisted at the sight, and he reached out to slowly drag his fingers over the marks, immediately dropping his hand when she flinched.

“How?” he asked.

To his surprise, Molly grinned. “A trick I learned from you, actually.” She pulled a small, blue rubber ball from her pocket. He cracked a small smile.

“Stuffed it under your armpit, then?”

Molly nodded. “Once they began threatening me, I kept one on me at all times. Just in case. He came at me from behind, so I didn’t see his face, but I was able to turn my head so the pressure was on my tendon instead of my windpipe and sufficiently fake being unable to breathe. Granted, it wasn’t exactly hard, that. I ended up blacking out.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “Terribly inefficient way of killing you,” he said. “What if you lived? As you clearly did?”

“I think that was the point,” she said quietly, stepping into his space and looking up at his stormy eyes. “They wanted to scare me. And you. Let you know they were watching and that as long as I was alive, I was always going to be in danger. So, I decided to beat them at their own game and kill myself.” Molly looked down at her corpse, pulling the white sheet over her face. “After having killed you, it wasn’t hard. The real test was fooling you. I knew that if you truly believed I was dead, then so would they.”

“But you’re not,” he said, his voice strangely choked.

“No, I’m not.” The silence that filled the air was electric. Sherlock grazed his fingers up her neck and across her cheek, palming her jaw and twining his fingers into her hair. She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes at the sensation. Suddenly, Sherlock pulled her flush to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her with a vehemence that surprised even him. Molly threw her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into his neck.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry, Sherlock. I’m so, so sorry.” She heard his breathing change as he began to cry, his breaths hitching, his frame shaking violently. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she chanted, wave after wave of guilt flooding over her.

He drew her face away from his neck and with a groan of her name, crashed his lips to hers, tasting salt and strawberries and _Molly_ who was _alive_ in his arms. She moaned and responded eagerly, running her fingers through his hair, opening her mouth to him.

Adrenaline coursed through her—adrenaline and arousal and guilt and she shouldn’t be doing this but it was the last time she would see him, possibly forever and dear god his mouth tasted _so good_ and his tongue was doing amazing things to her [ _and where did he learn to kiss like that?_ ] and she’d wanted him for so long, loved him for so long, and to stop kissing him now would be like dying…

And he shouldn’t be doing this, he should be protecting her, not giving in to his baser instincts, but oh lord he was on fire and she felt wonderful under his hands and his mouth and he’d wanted to do this for _so_ _bloody long_ and he thought he’d lost her and lost any chance he ever had at giving in to sentiment and just telling her how he felt…

He pushed against her, backing them up so she was pinned against the wall, lifting her leg so it rested against his hip. She took the hint and pulled up her other leg, wrapping her limbs around him and crossing her ankles at the small of his back. She felt his erection against her center and fire swept through her at the sensation. Molly’s hand went to his trousers, working at his belt and zip, her kisses becoming desperate, needing this, needing _him_. Sherlock rucked her peasant skirt above her waist, moved aside her knickers and pushed his fingers inside her. She cried out against his mouth, her nails digging into his coat, her other hand freeing his cock from its clothed prison.

“Molly,” he moaned, removing his hand from her depths and bracing himself against the wall. She kissed him and guided him to her entrance, impaling herself on him in one smooth stroke. She threw her head back wantonly, crying out as he began to move inside her.

It was rough and sloppy and emotional but it was also _wonderful_ and he felt so good inside her and she felt so good around him and he loved her and she loved him and all of a sudden she was coming around his cock, her keening echoing through the empty lab and her walls pulsing and squeezing and he was coming with a shout, releasing into her and holding on to her for dear life because he’d said it, _he’d actually said it out loud that he loved her_ …

Her breathing slowed though her heart pounded because he’d said it out loud _oh god he’d said he loved me and I said I loved him and this can’t be happening right now because I’m dead I’m dead I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!_

Her scream was covered by his mouth as he let her down gently. He kissed her slowly, gently, willing her panic to subside, trying to convey with his kiss that _everything was going to be okay_. Sherlock wrapped her in his coat, pressing her head to his chest, hoping the sound of his heartbeat would soothe her. Their mutual declarations of love unnerved him as much as it thrilled him and he resisted the urge to join her in panic. One of them had to remain sane in this moment, and if Molly was going to lose her head than he needed to keep his.

Her body wracked with sobs as everything caught up to her and she clutched his shirt as he gently pulled them to the floor. She curled up into him and cried for what could have been between them and would never be now because she was dead. He lulled her back to the moment with soothing sounds into her ear, nonsensical words that served to calm her, though the tears still came.

She reached up and kissed him desperately, lovingly. He palmed the base of her skull and took what she gave him greedily, knowing their time together was sadly limited. He still tasted salt and strawberries and _Molly_.

Their kisses became softer and gentler. He ghosted his lips across her cheek and down her neck, where he remained while he held her. She snaked her arms under his and clutched his back, her ear against his chest, his heartbeat pounding in a soothing rhythm.

“Molly?” he asked, after a long silence. “Why did you tell me? Why didn’t you let me think you were dead?”

She remained silent for so long Sherlock began to wonder if she would answer the question. But this was Molly and he remembered how he felt after his death and he waited.

“I wasn’t going to,” she murmured against his exposed skin. Her breath [ _and her words_ ] sent flutters to his stomach and he squeezed her harder.

“I didn’t want to. You needed to believe it was real. You all did. But,” she began, extracting herself from the cocoon he had enveloped her in and meeting his eyes, “you trusted me with your secret. And we all know you’re a brilliant actor, Sherlock Holmes,” she said wryly. “I knew I could trust you with mine. I needed you to know so you wouldn’t look to doss houses and syringes and synthetic highs that you’re better than. I needed you to know so you would have that much more motivation to track…whomever… down.

“I needed you to know,” she whispered, “because I heard what John said hours ago. About how you loved me.” His eyes widened. “And now I need you to know so that, when I come back, we can continue…this,” she gestured to them, intertwined as they were on the morgue floor. “Because I _will_ come back, Sherlock Holmes,” she said with sudden fierceness. “I know you. And Mary and John and Lestrade and even Mycroft. None of you will let my death go unavenged. You’ll track down this bastard and make him pay and England will be all the safer for it. And _we_ will be all the safer for it.”

He stared at her, his eyes filling and his heart swelled with the love he felt for this _incredible_ woman.

“God, I love you,” he growled, before he kissed her fiercely. She smiled against his mouth, her whole body warming at his words.

“I love you too,” she replied, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Her brow wrinkled in confusion as he suddenly began snickering.

“John and Mary are going to kill you,” he said, his eyes twinkling with tears and laughter. She chuckled.

“With good reason,” she agreed. “They’ll kill you too, when they find out you knew all this time.” She sobered, though her mouth still remained quirked in a smile. “Go get him, Sherlock Holmes. And let me know when it’s safe to come home to you.”

For the first time all day, Sherlock smiled.


End file.
